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    1. [ALLIMEST] Tombstone found of Ada HOLDEN
    2. The Sunday paper had the following article in it and thought I would pass it on in case an ancestor was on the list. TOMBSTONE HAS NAME, BUT NO HOME By Traci Godwin The Tombstone simply reads, "Ada Holden, born May 4, 1858, died September 1925." That is not enough information to allow Wesley Chapel Cemetery manaager, Janice Cagle, to find where the broken tombstone belongs. Caggle said a few weeks ago, a man named James Smith found the tombstone a couple of miles from the cemetery. He assumed it belonged there and propped it up against a tree. Cemetery workers have been puzzled ever since. There is no record of an Ada Holden buried in Wesley Chapel Cemetery. Cagle has no telephone number at which Smith can be reached. "He said he was going down the road and saw it," Cagle said. "He thought Holdens were buried here." The entire tombstone was found, although the headstone had been broken away from the base. According to burial records at the Limestone County Archives, no Ada Holden was buried in Limestone County, making the cemetery director's search more difficult. Cagle is in charge of the upkeep of the cemetery and takes care of the financial business  of selling plots and making sure graaves are dug. "This is an old cemetery," Cagle said. The property for the cemetery was dontated in Oct.1900 by J.V. Miller. Wesley Chapel Church once sat on the property with the cemetery, but was torn down years ago. "This cemetery is for people who live around this area and for their family members who wish to be buried here," Cagle said, adding that family names such as IVEY, SLOAN, HARBIN, CALDWELL, ELKINS, TETER, and RUCKER can be read on tombstones in the cemetery. Cagle picked up the telephone book when the tombstone appeared in her cemetery and began to call HOLDENs. She was met with a lot of strange reactions to her questions, but found no relatives of Ada Holden who could enlighten her about Holden's burial site. "I even called the Swap-and-Shop radio program and told who I was and that we really needed to find the family members of this lady," Cagle said. Cagle admits that because few burial records of Wesley Chapel Cemetery exist, Holden's remains could lie in the cemetery. Cagle said Russell Throneberry was the manager for the cemetery for years and years. Cagle took over the position, but Throneberry had no records of burials before three years ago. "The oldest grave in the cemetery dates back to the first days of the cemetery in 1900," Cagle said. Most of the older graves are in the front of the cemetery, but we have old graves throughout. We even have some babies in the back in unmarked graves. Cagle noted that several small family cemeteries dot the land in Limestone County. Perhaps Ada Holden rests in one of them. Anyone with information about Ada Holden's proper burial site is asked to call Cagle. (The phone number was listed but prefer not to put it on the net. Email me privately and I will send it.) Hope we can find this poor woman's final resting place.

    07/02/2001 05:14:56